venous attack upon the coarse but abundant
viands set before them.

The scene was a strange one. The brutal demeanour of the men, their
bearded and savage aspect; the disheveled bloodstained women, mingling
their shrill voices with the hoarse tones of their male companions;
the disordered but often picturesque garb and various weapons of the
pirates; the whole seen by the light of the burning houses--more
resembled an orgie of demons than an assemblage of human beings; and
even the cool and resolute Proveditore felt himself shudder and turn
pale as he contemplated this carnival of horrors, celebrated by
wretches on whose hands the blood of their fellow-men was as yet
hardly dry. Antonio sat supporting himself against the table, seeming
scarcely conscious of what passed around him. Both father and son had
been compelled to take their places at the board, amidst the jeers and
insults of the Uzcoques.

The revel was at its height, when Jurissa suddenly started from his
seat, and struck the table violently with his drinking-cup.

"Hold, Uzcoques!" he exclaimed; "we have forgotten the crowning
ornament of our banquet."

He whispered something to an Uzcoque seated beside him, who left the
room. While the pirates were still asking one another the meaning of
Jurissa's words, the man returned, bearing before him a trencher
covered with a cloth, which he placed at the upper end of the table.

"Behold the last and best dish we can offer to our noble guests!" said
Jurissa; "'twill suit, I doubt not, their dainty palates." And,
tearing off the cloth, he exposed to view the grizzly and distorted
features of a human head.

The shout of savage exultation that burst from the pirates at this
ghastly spectacle, drowned the groan of rage and grief uttered by the
Proveditore, as he recognised in the pale and rigid countenance the
well-known features of his friend Christophoro Veniero. That
unfortunate nobleman, on his return from a voyage to the Levant, had
fallen into the hands of Jurissa, who, before he was aware of the rank
of his prisoner, had barbarously slain him. This had occurred not many
hours before the capture of Marcello; and it was to the murder of
Veniero that the Uzcoque made allusion, when he seized Jurissa's arm
at the moment he was about to stab the Proveditore.

One of the pirates, a man of gigantic stature and hideous aspect, now
rose from his seat, staggering with drunkenness, and forcing open the
jaws of the d